RTE: "Poll suggests Heather Humphreys leading Presidential race" - totally misleading.

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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What a totally misleading headline!

www.rte.ie

Poll suggests Heather Humphreys leading presidential race

A new opinion poll suggests that the Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys is leading the presidential race.
www.rte.ie www.rte.ie

I assumed from the headline that they had asked people which of the three Presidential candidates they were voting for.

But the poll also included Mary Lou McDonald and Billy Kelleher , neither of whom are running, so the poll is totally out of date.

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I'm rather surprised that the high-powered intellectuals in the RTE Newsroom didn't add Kelleher's vote to Gavin's and claim that the FF candidate was leading!
 
Marsupial said:
I'm rather surprised that the high-powered intellectuals in the RTE Newsroom didn't add Kelleher's vote to Gavin's and claim that the FF candidate was leading!
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They aren't left wing enough for the smoked salmon socialists in RTE.
 
Bit ridiculous. They should have run a poll with "FF Candidate Gavin\Kelleher", Humphreys, Connolly and "SF Candidate", and run the transfers also.
 
Note that the all round %age is less than 100%.
In fact you could back 91 spread over the first 4 in the betting and secure 100. Unfortunately the liquidity suggest that the most you might be able to actually bet is about €20.
 
Why isn't A.N. Other included in those betting stakes? I know literally dozens of people who plan to vote for him/her/they/them?
 
I decided to follow my own advice. You will see below that if either of the first 4 win I will either celebrate or commiserate with a cup of coffee. If it is someone outside the top 4 I will abstain from coffee for a week (having lost €43)
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Marsupial said:
Why isn't A.N. Other included in those betting stakes?
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There are in fact 56 quoted on the Betfair lists most only on the Bet side with no Lay and at the maximum allowed of 1000.
AN Other would be a bit messy in a peer to peer exchange as these markets usually expand and change with time so that ANO would be time sensitive. Not beyond the capabilities of the technology but they don't tend to that.
If ANO with respect to a particular time in the market actually subsequently wins the exchange don't profit from that fact in the way that a bookie would as anyone who laid bets would win and not the exchange.
 
Thanks for that informative and comprehensive answer, which, due entirely to my complete ignorance of ̶s̶p̶r̶e̶a̶d̶ betting, is wholly incomprehensible to me. :confused:
 
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Marsupial said:
ignorance of spread betting
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Clearly not a miss spent youth. For your further education Betfair is not "spread betting", it is peer to peer old fashioned betting. If an event wins the backing players are paid by the laying players and vice versa if it loses, with the exchange taking a 2% commission of the winnings. It is based on investment markets' technology and truly revolutionised betting in the UK and its cultural affiliates like Ireland and Australia. And of course it is banned in socialist France who use moral intolerance to protect the State near monopoly of betting with its take of over 20%.
Betfair is for me the best indicator of the chances of likely future outcomes such as in sport and political contests. Money is beneath any suspicion of bias. For example, reading the local sports pages one might have been led to believe that the Irish Women's rugby team had some prospect of going far in the World Cup. I quick check on Betfair would have dispelled any such fantasy.
 
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Going by this out-of-date chart, if SF back Connolly it would look like a walk into the park (excuse the pun) for her, imo.

I just don't see where Humphreys transfers will come from. Casey, yes, but where else?

Leo V let the cat of out of bag about Jim "I thought he was one of us" Gavin. Still not recognising what the rest of us can see, Fianna Gael.
 
Marsupial said:
So what do the green/red money colours beneath candidates' names on the chart signify?
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Those are my personal stakes in the outcome. Trivial figures for it is a very thin market; I was just doing it almost for educational purposes. So for example if Jim Gavin wins the green €3.40 indicates that that is what I would win though I would need to pay 2% of that to the exchange. So not quite enough for a coffee at my local Insomnia.
If Conor McGregor or anybody below him in the list or indeed ANO wins a red -€43.00 means I will lose €43 which will be distributed amongst those who Lay-ed the top four.
I know you like the risqué single entendre. At the last French presidential election I felt sure that the market was overstating Marine Le Penn's chances and I excitedly suggested to a friend, more worldly than I, that she was a great Lay. I was certainly proven right on one interpretation of that expression.
 
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Watching the 6 news this evening. Much being made of Pearse Dohertys presence at the ploughing.

Brighter minds than mine are reading a SF run for the Aras!

Delighted as will split the lefty vote and take the gallop from Connolly.
 
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